November 29, 2005

dune : house atreides

file under: books

i've been a semi-rabid fan of Frank Herbert's Dune series for many years. actually, it's probably fair to say that i've only been a true fan for the past 2-3 years since i finished all of the first six books. those other years in between having read the original Dune and the rest don't count...

i don't actually remember what it was that sparked me to read the final five books a few years ago...i guess i just felt a sense of incompleteness after having read the first book (and having watched the movie) several times. the first book stands as one of the greatest science fiction novels of the 20th century, independent of the rest...maybe i held off reading the others thinking that they could never reach the level that Herbert had set with his first Dune novel. i was wrong, of course. the series as a whole has more impact and is much more impressive; awe-inspiring, even.

and then he died. and there were no more books for many years. and then, all of a sudden, his son published a prequel...

...

it was my sense of awe and admiration for the original series that led to my profound skepticism about brian herbert's prequel(s). when his first Dune prequel was released, it struck me as opportunistic; clearly, it was an effort to cash in on Dad's fame and fortune. what literary merit could come out of this kind of money-grubbing? none, i thought.

and so i let brian herbert (in conjunction with kevin j. anderson) write six books before i decided i could give them a try. the pair have penned the "House Trilogy" (House Atreides, House Harkonnen, House Corrino) and the "Legends" trilogy (The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, The Battle of Corrin), each of which serves as a set of prequels in the Dune universe.

it's easy to imagine prequels that fail miserably in their attempts to recapture the glory of the original novels. after all, how could they not fail? how could anyone do what frank herbert did? how could anyone match the combination of philosophy, narrative drive, character development, and universe creation that herbert achieved?

well, somehow, i think that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson did a fantastic job (at least, with the first novel). they did it better than anyone else, obviously, since no one else even tried (or were granted the right to try). my skepticism was erased after reading Dune : House Atriedes, for the most part, and i look forward to reading the remaining five prequels.

<minor spoilers follow>

when i heard the title, i though the entire novel was going to be centered around House Atreides. i'm not sure why, because this makes little sense, given the way the Dune universe was developed (i.e., as a set of interlocking stories involving multiple major Houses, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, miscellanous dramatis personae on Arrakis, etc.). and so it went with herbert's prequel. in the course of House Atreides, multiple story arcs are pursued:

• House Atreides (under the rule of Duke Paulus Atreides, grandfather to Paul Atreides, hero of Dune)
• House Harkonnen (and the multiple plots it undertakes to try to screw just about everyone they possibly can)
• House Corrino (the Royal House on Planet Kaitain, and how rule evolves from Emperor Elrood to Emperor Shaddam IV)
• the Bene Gesserit (and the evolution of their breeding program for the Kwisatz Haderach)
• Duncan Idaho (and how he becomes attached to House Atreides)
• House Vernius and how it loses control of Ix
• the Bene Tleilax, their plot with the Emperor, and how they gain control of Ix
• Arrakis, and how it starts down the path towards ecological evolution under the guidance of Pardot Kynes (father of Liet)

as with the original series, you will need to keep track of many different characters spread across multiple geographies. Herbert and Anderson have tried to provide backstory for most of the personae that appear in the original novels (with a few notable exceptions, like Gurney Halleck). this is one of the things that i found particularly rewarding...when frank herbert wrote the original series, he provided a gaggle of characters with implied histories, but didn't provide the histories themselves. one had to accept allegiances and friendships on faith, rather than on experience. the prequel(s) fill in those gaps, illuminating the experiences that created the relationships that Dune takes for granted.

who will you see from the original Dune series in the first prequel?

• Leto Atreides
• Thufir Hawat
• Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
• Rabban Harkonnen
• Piter DeVries
• Duncan Idaho
• Gaius Helen Mohiam
• Stilgar
• Pardot Liet Kynes (briefly, as a baby)
• Emperor Shaddam IV
• Hasimir Fenring

What didn't i like about this prequel? in summary, i guess i'd have to say that it felt like it demanded less of its audience. even though the plotlines sprawl, and the intrigues nest one within another, there was still a measure of explanation that wasn't present in the first series of novels. frank herbert didn't club you over the head with relationships and motivations and backstories. brian herbert and kevin j. anderson, on the other hand, do. they repeat things, three, four, five times, to make sure the reader gets it. this was completely unnecessary, although i'm sure very calculated to appeal to an audience that had not read the original Dune series.

the other thing that seemed missing was the level of philosophical insight present in the first series of novels. frank herbert not only created a world, but he provided commentary on the relgious, socio-political, and ecological structures that gave rise to this world. perhaps brian herbert could do nothing but adhere to the worldview that his father created, which makes his work seem less innovative on a philosophical level.

with all of these things said, i must say i enjoyed reading House Atreides. in fact, i kept going back to it, day after day, curious to find out what happened next. regardless of whether or not herbert lived up to the impossible standard set by his father, this to me was a viable metric for a good book: does it make you want to come back for more?

in the case of brian herbert and kevin j. anderson's Dune prequels, the answer is an unequivocal Yes.

Posted: 11.29.05 at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

November 26, 2005

spam: 844, email: 24

file under: thoughts about things

i just got back from a great week of thanksgiving vacation with my lovely fiancee and her family. after walking in the door, i began the homecoming ritual in short order, so i could maximize my relaxation time prior to going back to the grind on monday. the ritual is pretty well established for me:

1. drop luggage in staging area
2. wander around house making sure everything looks ok
3. check to see if any plants died
4. go to (snail) mailbox and get stack of mail
5. soak in the feeling of being home again (smile in the process)
6. unpack
7. take empty luggage down to garage
8. open refrigerator and look for biology experiments gone terribly wrong; dispose of anything hairy, black or slimy that shouldn't be
9. make shopping list and go to grocery store; come home and unpack groceries
10. wake up computer
11. check email

things went really well until i got to step 11. no plants died. the house didn't burn down. unpacking was easy. the stack of mail wasn't nearly as heinous as it could have been. yes, it was all smashing, right up until the moment when i stepped out of the real world and into my Inbox:

     Inbox: (868 unread messages)

...

suffice it to say that i am not nearly popular enough to warrant this volume of fan mail. here's the breakdown, Harper's style:

• Emails from friends: 3
• Evites: 1
• Mailing list emails: 6
• Headline notifications from the New York Times: 6
• Really, really important emails: 1 (maybe)
• Random crap from companies I've bought stuff from: 7
• Blog comment spams: 10
• Blog comments: 0
• Meaningless, mind-numbing spams: 834

i was gone for six days (144 hours, give or take a few hours). that averages out to about six spams per hour, or one spam every ten minutes. it's also a signal-to-noise ratio of about 1.3% (discounting the NYTimes and companies i've bought crap from). in fact, if i take out the mailing list stuff and just look at emails from friends, we're at an abysmal 0.5%. from where i sit, that's really pathetic (and less a commentary about how popular i am than it is about the sheer volume of spam clogging the internet).

a lot of the spam came from the north pole or from santa. happy holidays! hey kids, santa's not coming to town this year...he's too busy sending spam!! ha ha! ho ho ho! i don't know why this made me sad, but it did, and i don't even like christmas.

if i think about it, one spam every ten minutes seems consistent with what i normally experience; i've already received seven while writing this entry, and i've been writing about 60 minutes. so i guess my 834-spam holiday isn't beyond the pale, but it's still troubling. my friend andrew thinks i shouldn't hate spam, but i'm not entirely convinced. it consumes my time, and in my haste to wade through this mountain of less-than-worthless sh*t, it raises the likelihood that i'll miss a message i actually care about. and keep in mind, if you got 850 pieces of physical mail in one week, would you be pissed off?

i like to think i know what i'm doing when it comes to defeating spam (two layers of spam filters, plus a separate layer on my blog), but my defense measures are about as good as a rebel defense network put together by jar jar binks. if this isn't working for me, i wonder what it's like for everyone else out there. granted, i had my email address publicly visible on my blog for several years, so in some sense, i deserve what i get (man, was that dumb). even so, it still seems a bit much.

if this continues, i'm going to have to decommission yet another email address and go through the arduous process of telling everyone about the new address. if i had to guess, i'd say this process will take me 1-3 days. if it was an hour, i wouldn't really care, but it's not. my email address has become a digital identifier that i use repeatedly and frequently, and changing it might even be harder than changing a physical address.

should i hate spammers or the people who are stupid enough to consume it, people ignorant or dumb enough to pour gasoline on the hellfire of non-information? how about both? does hating both work for you?

happy holidays!! ;-)

ps: apologies if i'm repeating myself. i know i've written about spam on multiple occasions in the past, but i'm too lazy to go back and see what i was frothing at the mouth about back then...

Posted: 11.26.05 at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

November 20, 2005

Public enemy number one

file under:

Posted: 11.20.05 at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 16, 2005

phone box

file under: my life

the belly of the beast. it's amazing anything works at all.

Posted: 11.16.05 at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

truth in advertising

file under: thoughts about things

how often do you think this works?

Posted: 11.16.05 at 11:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Esperpento

file under: my life

had dinner tonight with a good friend at Esperpento in the mission. this photo was hanging in the hallway by the bathroom. tios translates as aunt and uncle. maybe that's somebody's uncle, although the guy in the back doesn't really look like anyone's aunt.

Posted: 11.16.05 at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)